MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHOD. 529 



ing power " were friendly to the Romans. Are we then to suppose 

 that it was the persons of Jewish " ethnical character " who 

 favored the Romans, while those of Gentile " ethnical character " 

 were opposed to them ? But if that supposition is absurd, the 

 only alternative is that the local civil government was ethnically 

 Gentile. That is exactly my contention. 



At pp. 973 and 97G of the Keepers of the Herd of Swine I have 

 fully discussed this question of the ethnical character of the gen- 

 eral population. I have shown that, according to Josephus, who 

 surely ought to have known, Gadara was as much a Gentile city 

 as Ptolemais; I have proved that he includes Gadara among the 

 cities " that rose up against the Jews that were among them," 

 which is a pretty definite expression of his belief that the " eth- 

 nical character of the general population " was Gentile. There is 

 no question here of Jews of the Roman party fighting with Jews 

 of the Zealot party, as Mr. Gladstone suggests. It is the non-Jew- 

 ish and anti-Jewish general population which rises up against the 

 Jews who had settled " among them." 



Prop. 3. His one item of direct evidence as to the Gentile 

 character of the city refers only to the former and not to the latter. 



More fatal still. But, once more not to me. I adduce not one, 

 but a variety of " items " in proof of the non- Judaic character of 

 the population of Gadara : the evidence of history ; that of the 

 coinage of the city ; the direct testimony of Josephus, just cited 

 to mention no others. I repeat, if the wealthy people and those 

 connected with them the " classes " and the " hangers on " of 

 Mr. Gladstone's well-known taxonomy were, as he appears to 

 admit they were, Gentiles ; if the " civil government " was in their 

 hands, as the coinage proves it was what becomes of Mr. Glad- 

 stone's original proposition in The impregnable Rock of Scripture 

 that " the population of Gadara, and still less (if less may be) the 

 population of the neighborhood," were " Hebrews bound by the 

 Mosaic law " ? And what is the importance of estimating the pre- 

 cise proportion of Hebrews who may have resided, either in the 

 city of Gadara, or in its dependent territory, when, as Mr. Glad- 

 stone now seems to admit (I am careful to say " seems"), the gov- 

 ernment, and consequently the law which ruled in that territory 

 and defined civil right and wrong, was Gentile and not Judaic ? 

 But perhaps Mr. Gladstone is prepared to maintain that the Gen- 

 tile " local civil government " of a city of the Decapolis adminis- 

 tered Jewish law ; and showed their respect for it, more particu- 

 larly, by stamping their coinage with effigies of the emperors. 



In point of fact, in his haste to attribute to me errors which I 

 have not committed, Mr. Gladstone has given away his case. 



Prop. 4. He fatally confounds the question of political party with 

 those of nationality and of religion, and assumes that those who 



